Late at night.
The bustling, prosperous market of the daytime gradually grew quiet.
A figure walked silently through the night, wearing a straw hat to obscure his features.
At the mouth of a pitch-black alley, a pill rolled across the ground.
Spotting it, a cultivator's eyes lit up, and he hurried to reach out to pick it up, stepping into the alley's mouth.
Whoosh.
A gust of cold wind blew past, and the figure from before was already gone.
Inside a room in the courtyard, a fair hand tossed the straw hat onto the table and dumped the unconscious man off his shoulder onto the floor.
“I kept watch for half a day, and he was the only rogue cultivator who fell for it.” The youth's tall, slender figure suddenly shrank, turning into a four-year-old child.
Although others had spotted the pill as well, they suppressed their greed and left immediately. This man was caught simply because he wasn't cautious enough.
“Although his Water Spiritual Root is only Earth Grade, it's enough for your temporary recovery.”
Leaning in Wen Li's arms, Yao Dai glanced at the unconscious young man at the Sixth Level of Qi Refinement. Her brow furrowed, and her hands clenched into fists.
This time, she was truly about to act against someone who had no feud or grievance with her. She...
He seemed only seven or eight years older than her. What if...
What if he had parents, children, or a wife?
As if sensing her hesitation, Wen Li reached out and held her hand, patting it gently. Lowering her head, her cheek brushed against Yao Dai's ear. Her cold, clear voice contained no softheartedness—only a quiet, gentle cruelty.
“If he doesn't die by your hand, his greed will eventually get him killed by someone else. It's better that he helps you instead. Carrying his Spiritual Root, you can put it to far greater use. His spirit in heaven ought to thank you.”
“It's you who allows his talentless Spiritual Root to carve out a broader path in the cultivation world. It's you who gives him the chance to die quickly and painlessly, rather than being refined into a puppet.”
“In the world of cultivation, the strong devour the weak. Human nature is inherently self-serving. You are not in the wrong.”
Her usually aloof, cool tone held a mesmerizing, seductive charm in this moment, coaxing out the deepest greed and selfishness in the human heart.
“What's wrong is the rules of this world, which force you to abandon your so-called conscience. But you're merely trying to live for yourself—what fault is there in that? Everyone is like this. In murky waters, that lone speck of purity is the true anomaly.”
“Think of the Taixuan Sect's Old Ancestor. When he wanted to kill you and destroy your Spiritual Root, did he stop to consider that it was merely karma for Chen Feng wiping out your clan? The night your entire family was slaughtered, what wrong had you committed?”
“...” Right.
Hearing these words, the lingering trace of struggle in Yao Dai's eyes vanished as she looked up. Softheartedness and righteousness melted away, replaced entirely by frigid hatred.
She rose from Wen Li's arms, stepped down, and walked toward the unconscious youth.
Her fingers slid down from his chest to his dantian—the location of his Spiritual Root.
Squatting on the ground without raising her head, she asked, “Master, what should I do?”
“I have already set up nine layers of defenses around the eight corners of the courtyard. Xie Tinglan will guard us. You will gouge out the Spiritual Root with your own hands. Remember not to let it be contaminated by anyone else's aura but yours. I will merge it for you.”
Wen Li had already placed everything needed on the table.
“Okay.”
Xie Tinglan, who was leaning lazily against the doorframe, immediately straightened up and stood guard outside, fully on alert.
Once Wen Li fed the man a bowl of specially prepared medicinal soup and a blood-red pill, Yao Dai squatted down, holding a dagger that had been soaked in talismanic liquid medicine.
With a cold flash of light, she thrust it into the young man's abdomen without a moment's hesitation.
Pfft!
The young man's tightly closed eyes twitched, veins bulging on his forehead as if enduring unimaginable agony.
After slicing open a slit, Yao Dai forcibly plunged her hand into the flesh and blood. To the side, Wen Li immediately formed hand seals, casting incantations onto the young man's abdomen. A wild wind whipped up the talismans pasted around the room, sending their hair fluttering.
Wen Li silently chanted bizarre incantations under her breath.
A hint of madness glinted in Yao Dai's clear eyes. She had felt it!
“Master.”
Her tense, unmoving call conveyed everything to Wen Li.
“Put it into the medicinal pot beside you. Hurry.”
Under her master's urge, Yao Dai's blood-soaked left hand tightly gripped the object inside the flesh. From the sliced-open abdomen, a dazzling light of faint blue glowed faintly.
Her left hand alone lacked enough force. Yao Dai tossed the dagger aside, grabbed on with her right hand as well, and yanked hard.
“Aaargh!!!”
The previously unconscious young man suddenly snapped his eyes open and let out a bloodcurdling scream of agony. The stark blood vessels bulging in his eyes testified to his intense pain. His hands trembled, instinctively trying to cover his abdomen, but he couldn't move at all.
Looking at the translucent, light-blue ginseng-like object pulsing faintly in her hands, Yao Dai's eyes trembled with intense thrill. She had gotten it!
Not daring to delay, she immediately placed the Spiritual Root into the medicinal pot Wen Li had prepared.
Ignoring the conscious, screaming young man, she rushed over and lay down on the bed, taking that same dagger to stab it directly into her own dantian.
“Ngh!!”
Veins bulged on Yao Dai's neck from the excruciating pain. Her left hand instinctively gripped the bedsheets tight.
Even though she was drenched in sweat and on the verge of fainting from the pain, she bit her lower lip hard to stay conscious without crying out, gasping heavily and painfully.
“Master, start quickly.”
She couldn't die. She had to cultivate! She had to become strong!
Seeing her like this, Wen Li frowned slightly and quickly popped a pill into her mouth. Then, grabbing the herbs, she channeled spiritual energy with both hands, refining them to melt directly into Yao Dai's dantian.
“Hold on.”
Yao Dai's chest heaved violently from the agony, her bitten lips turning pale.
Next, Wen Li extracted the Spiritual Root from the medicinal pot. Instead of placing it directly into Yao Dai's abdomen, she sliced her right hand, forcing out a single golden drop of her own blood!
She touched the golden blood to the fresh Spiritual Root.
In an instant, the Spiritual Root—which had begun to wither after losing its host's vitality—burst into a radiant, overflowing light.
Yao Dai was on the verge of passing out from the pain, leaving her with no energy to notice this scene.
However, Xie Tinglan, guarding outside the door, sensed an extraordinary power.
Frowning, he turned to look at the closed door, a flicker of something passing through his eyes.
Rumble!
Suddenly, an earth-shattering clap of thunder in the sky drew his attention.
Xie Tinglan immediately looked up, thinking an enemy had arrived. Fortunately, it seemed to be just a sudden, solitary rumble from the heavens. When he looked again, the starry night sky remained untroubled and calm as though nothing had happened.
No one knew how much time had passed.
By the time Xie Tinglan heard movement inside the room again, the sun was already hanging high in the sky the next day.
Click.
The door was pushed open from within.
When Xie Tinglan turned to look, he saw that the spiritual power emanating from Yao Dai inside the room had broken through from the Fifth Level of Qi Refinement to the Sixth Level of Qi Refinement.
Yao Dai cycled her hands to retract her spiritual energy. Opening her eyes, a sharp, fierce edge had settled into her youthful gaze.
“Master, I'm done!”
Yet the instant she looked up at Wen Li, she tucked away her sharp edge, climbed out of bed, and wrapped her arms around Wen Li, transforming right back into a naive, innocent girl.
“Master, thank you.”
This was the second chance at rebirth her Master had given her.
Wen Li raised her hand to stroke her head, offering gentle instructions as her lips curled slightly upward. “For now, wait for the Spiritual Root to fully integrate with you. Make sure not to use too much spiritual energy, and take the pills I gave you on schedule. Next time, after I assist you in seizing another Spiritual Root, I'll teach you the method to seize and integrate them on your own. There's no rush.”
Although this was the first time her Master had been so talkative and serious, Yao Dai thoroughly enjoyed it, smiling brightly and nodding happily.
“Mm-hm, Master, I understand. Don't worry.”
She glanced at the young man lying on the floor, who had died with his eyes unclosed, staring right at her. Her gaze turned slightly cold.
Stepping out of Wen Li's arms, she looked toward Xie Tinglan.
“Don't you eat humans...?”
Before she could even finish, Xie Tinglan, guessing what she was scheming, furrowed his brows in disgust. Oddly enough, his disgust wasn't about whether he ate humans or not, but rather—
“He's already dead through and through. I only eat live ones.”
Yao Dai pouted playfully. “You should've said so earlier! If I had known, I would've thrown him out for you to eat before he breathed his last.”
She uttered these words with complete ease; any lingering mercy in her heart had vanished.
In her mind, as long as something could be useful to herself, her Master, or Xie Tinglan, it wasn't considered wasteful.
This time, Xie Tinglan quietly tacitly agreed without making a sound.
Although he was used to eating the human food Wen Li gave him, he was still growing and had a massive appetite. Who would complain about having more to eat?
【Oh my gosh, one gouges out Spiritual Roots, the other eats humans—what kind of sect is this?!】
The System covered its ears and eyes at what it was hearing. This clashed horribly with all the previous case studies shared by the System Management Bureau. Yet, ironically, the Host's actions genuinely achieved the goal. As a mere string of data without a true concept of good or evil, even it felt things were veering off track.
Wen Li watched tenderly as her two disciples began setting fire to destroy the corpse.
【We are, of course, the loving yet utterly heinous sect family.】
【System, stop worrying about whether they're villains or not. As long as the objective is met, who cares what method we use? Who knows, maybe the villainous path I'm teaching them is a shortcut.】
【Sigh...】 Seeing initial results, the System wavered. 【Forget it, forget it! Just make sure you keep the mission in mind.】
Although the Host was a bit unhinged, she surely wouldn't joke around with her own cultivation path to immortality. Besides, the System still held the key to her cultivation advancement, so it wasn't afraid she wouldn't do her job.
Rate on N.U.
